There’s no reason I need to make charcoal—I don’t normally use it for anything, and if I did, bags of it are so easy to buy. But I find the whole process of exhausting wood sticks into little brittle black pieces so much fun that I’m going to start inventing reasons to use charcoal in my life.

Grant Thompson shows us how he makes his charcoal: by stuffing paint cans with stir sticks, sawdust, and crap he found on the ground, puncturing a hole on the lid, and then tossing those cans in a fire. Once the hole stops showing smoke, you have charcoal.